Coupled with the fact that Goldstein, Potter, and Bu's family who went to school at Hogwarts all have branches in the United States, Patil is in India, and Qiu Zhang is in China... Little Hogwarts has become a world politics for a time. The best point of intersection.

And Lockhart will never miss this opportunity.

Chapter 295 Lockhart on Liberty

After the Warriors and Warriors' squires were selected, as the sports department and sponsors expected, the attention of the Big Five Tournament suddenly took another level.

Of course, the media that bought the reporting rights would not waste this opportunity. After their reporters sent the live report back to the headquarters, the major media immediately started their own actions.

Of course, the countries that have selected warriors have blown their own warriors to the sky. The meaning of the words is that "the warriors need your support and solidarity". Those who were not selected also began to question the so-called "shady" and incite readers to go. Petition for re-election

Of course, these are all hype tactics, just to cause controversy, the Warriors selected by the Goblet of Fire will not change no matter what.

Although Lockhart has never heard of it, it seems that the warriors of Ilvermorny and Vagado are also well-known in their country. A few days after their election, letters of solidarity from all over the world flew like snowflakes. Hogwarts.

Some of these letters are enthusiastic encouragement, such as the letter paper covered with lipstick; some are threats and intimidation from the wizards of hostile countries, such as those written in the blood of pigeons or rabbits; some are relatively Directly, the letter directly stated how much money he had bet on him, and if he dared to lose, he would make you look good and so on.

Lockhart knew this because he needed to open and read all the letters.

The vicious events of the World Cup were also a boon to Lockhart, that the Ministry of Magic had agreed that he would "strictly register every wizard's wand or other spell-casting tool during the Tournament, and keep a record of its presence at Hogwarts. Itineraries and correspondence within the scope of the request”.

Lockhart admits that the wolves must be coriander. And the name of Lao Mu is also named for the same text.

If you don't want to die at Hogwarts, then it's best to follow strict security measures.

This is undoubtedly a bit excessive, and it has aroused the disgust of many people. After the plan came out, many wizards protested to the Ministry of Magic.

And Fudge also let out a word, asking Lockhart to find a way to solve this matter, so that his reputation as a minister would not be damaged.

Taking into account public opinion, Lockhart specially concocted an article titled "Has Civil Liberties Violated?" and asked Rita Skeeter to publish it in the newspaper.

In the article, he divided "freedom" into two interpretations, namely "positive freedom" and "negative freedom" proposed by Isaiah.

The so-called negative freedom refers to the extent to which people can free themselves from being controlled, and this also belongs to a narrower sense of freedom. equal freedom", the freedom they want is a kind of freedom "not to be interfered by the outside world".

Obviously, from the above two examples, the so-called "negative freedom" is fatally flawed.

No one can achieve "complete freedom", not to mention those inherent obstacles caused by passion and desire, even "freedom boundaries" can also prevent a person from achieving the so-called "negative freedom".

For example, if a person wants to kill and defends himself with "the freedom to kill", then he is destined to violate the freedom of existence of others, and the resulting conflict will make the freedom he can enjoy even greater. less not more.

Positive freedom refers to the extent to which people can control themselves, that is,

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The freedom to follow whether decisions made when rational and self-disciplined belong to "

be your own master"

However, "positive freedom" has two sides, some of which are more positive, such as "compulsory education" and "compulsory military service", which constitute the basic framework of a modern country

shelf. There are also "epidemic isolation" and "dynamic clearing", which also ensure the harmony and stability of a society.

But the negative part is that the concept of "positive freedom" is easy to be used, such as Grindelwald, Voldemort, and the mustache, etc., use a more pleasant concept to make others obey the "greater interests" he bewitched ”, and to make that person think that he chose to follow them out of reason.

If these two concepts continue to deepen, it will involve a philosophical discussion of which of the "id", "ego" and "superego" is the real "ego".

But Lockhart didn't have the mood to write about it in the newspapers, so just like now, I used a few relatively simple examples as an example. According to Rita Skeeter, the Ministry of Magic did not hurt anyone. "positive freedom" because everyone wants to watch the game, and watch it safely. If you feel that you are in the market with mixed umbrellas, pens, and models, you will have a lot of heat. /

Rita Skeeter's article temporarily quelled a group of potential opponents. Political theorists in the wizarding world seem to be studying the article she "wrote", and they won't be in the mood to fight for a while, anyway. It's just a business game.

It is the instinct of scholars to be hungry and thirsty for new knowledge. These two interpretations of freedom were only proposed by Muggle scholars in the second half of the 20th century, and they have also become one of the theoretical cornerstones of the so-called "neoliberalism". I believe that Enough for these wizards to think for a while.

And because Rita Skeeter's position has always been on the side of the Ministry of Magic: so no one would doubt that she would say these things. Lockhart, while defending himself, also buried a nail for Voldemort, feeling very satisfied.

Of course Gemma knew who wrote this article, and the part she was most satisfied with was the explanation of the "positive freedom" part, and she was successfully led astray.

In a kind of elitism consciousness of "the foolish people do nothing", Gemma is satisfied

I cut out the part of the newspaper and kept it in my notebook.

"It's true," she said to Lockhart. "There are things you don't have to explain to those people why you do it, you just have to tell them how to do it, and it's really not for those idiots to think about it. I don't even know what freedom is

Lockhart decided not to respond to her remarks, even though he thought some people were hopelessly stupid, and arrogance and prejudice were even less desirable.

The difference between an old man and a young man lies not in age, but in knowing what to say and what not to say, or what to say when not to be said.

What he didn't expect was that the people who read the article also included a girl who was interested in politics, and she came to the exact opposite conclusion to Gemma.

Chapter 296 Split

During breakfast, Hermione Granger took the freshly baked Daily Prophet from her owl's mouth.

After reading the news on the front page, her attention was drawn to an article on the second page that Lockhart had written about whether increased security violated wizards' civil liberties.

Then, there was an uncontrollable cheer in her throat.

"I see!"

Hermione Granger tugged at Harry and Ron with great interest, pointing to the report: "If we want to give house-elves freedom, we must first try to avoid infringing on their "negative freedom", Then find a way to influence them and let them understand that the pursuit of \"positive freedom\' like Dobby is the real freedom!"

But neither Harry nor Ron wanted to discuss it with her, let alone sleepy when they saw the dense text.

"Okay, can't you help Harry and let him think about what to do with those things for Halloween?" Ron complained.

"But he's just a squire, and it's Cedric who needs to sort things out," Hermione pointed out.

Ron pouted: "It's hard to say, didn't you also listen to Dumbledore? If the warrior dies, Harry has to collect the body for him..."

At this time, a few Hufflepuff students happened to pass by behind them. After hearing Ron's words, they glared at the three of them, and there was a sound field that wanted to make an appointment with them.

But judging by the fact that Harry was about to fight, they didn't do that, and they couldn't do something so violent.

"Speak carefully, Weasley!" said one of the boys. "If you're really worried about the game, then you should talk to Diggory."

Harry hurriedly stood up and calmed down: "We will, thank you, Smith

Lockhart had no idea what was going on in the castle, and he couldn't get his hands on it now.

Because the souvenir market in Hogsmeade had finally opened, he had to watch it himself, and Gemma was with him on the inspection.

There are still a few days until Halloween night, and foreign tourists have appeared one after another in Hogsmeade. And if Lockhart wants to experiment with his "intermediate trade" policy in the future, he must come up with a statement now.

Thanks to a year of teaching at Hogwarts, Lockhart has been able to determine that there is actually a very strong demand for wizards for various industrial products produced by Muggles.

The flea markets run by Muggle-born students have become more and more popular lately, and even professors will buy some of their upside-down stuff.

In terms of the things purchased from Muggles according to the statistics of the Ministry of Magic, metal ingots from the metallurgical industry and mechanical products such as automobiles, motorcycles, and bicycles account for the majority. There are some magic-free medicinal potions.

As for cultural and entertainment products such as books, they are limited by the control of the Ministry of Magic and have not been able to enter the wizarding world immediately.

Wizards need to buy things from Muggles with relatively no mouths. If this continues, the wizarding world will undoubtedly lose blood and currencies such as gold will move from wizards to Muggles.

For example, the plane bought by the Malfoy family, although it is second-hand, one still needs

Millions of dollars, if it weren't for the Muggle currency earned in grain futures, even the Malfoys couldn't afford so much gold.

And the essence of Voldemort's Rebellion in the original book is probably the inevitable panic that appeared after the pure-blood family realized that gold was flowing to Muggles.

But now it's different, because two of Lockhart's deals have already seen profits.

Originally, because of the purchase of Muggle industrial products, the Ministry of Magic spent hundreds of thousands of Galleons every year, and then distributed the purchased industrial products to the pure-blooded family who invested, and the pure-blooded family lost hundreds of thousands of Galleons in gold every year.

But now Nigeria's oil wells can generate hundreds of thousands of Galleons a day, even after all kinds of taxes and equipment losses are thrown away, they have made a profit.

At the current rate, they don't even need the expected one year to make a return. If it works well, they can recover their previous investment in half a month, and there will be more and more in the future.

In the face of this money, no matter how much Lockhart jumps in politics, no matter how close he is to the Lion faction, even if he wants to turn the International Division into his own territory, the pure-blood family will only turn a blind eye. Close one eye.

And Gemma Farley, who has become more and more daring recently, is the representative-Mr. Farley is no longer ready to interfere with the choices made by his daughter.

The only problem they had now was how to concoct a pedigree of pure blood family descendants, and then find a chance to label Lockhart's forehead as "pure blood".

People like that must be pure blood, and must be pure blood—that's what the wizards negotiated.

Just like the black girl Sarah Recto, she should have spent her life under the discrimination of white people like other black people. But because she is so rich, the U.S. government has to forcefully declare her white, otherwise they make it up

That set cannot be justified.

In addition to the oil accident, the hair spirits sold by the Extraordinary Apothecary also have a net profit of tens of thousands of Galleons a week. Although this money is only a drop in the bucket compared to the oil business, compared to the traditional business of wizards, this To describe this profit as "amazing" is still an understatement.

With the profits from these two businesses, the purebloods found their problems suddenly changed in nature.

The original problem is that everyone has less and less money, so the most important thing to worry about is how to "throttle money", but now from "exceeding the excess" to "entering the excess", what everyone has to worry about is the money in hand. So much that they don't know what to spend.

This is not a good thing. There is essentially no difference between the gold of one million Galleons and the gold of ten billion Galleons in the family treasury, it is just a number.

Money is only money when it is spent. If the money can't be spent, they are just a burden, not only failing to bring them a higher status, but also causing them disaster.

But spending money is also a kind of knowledge. They can't just fly a plane and throw coins directly. In that case, they will really throw coins.

So after discussion, the real power families in the wizarding world decided to accept Lockhart's suggestion and start the "intermediate trade".

The basic process is that purebloods use the money earned from Muggles to buy industrial products, and then use magic to make magical products and sell them to wizards abroad.

Of course, in return, they also have to buy some special magic products of the other country from foreign wizards, and then sell them to civilians in their own countries.

Although it may seem like taking off your pants and farting is superfluous, it means a lot to purebloods.

Because when turning muggle industrial products into magic items: they hire a lot of

Serving commoner wizards as workers and paying them wages.

When a group of people have to sell their labor to them in exchange for these Galleons, they truly control the wizarding world with money.

To put it nicely, this is called "order", and to put it more essentially, this is called monopoly.

Lockhart has written to all sponsors, asking them to prepare a batch of domestic specialties as soon as possible, and he will start a more extensive and in-depth consultation with them depending on their sales.

If even this first "import and export commodity trading market" can't be settled, Lockhart himself would feel ashamed even if others didn't say it, let alone he promised Dumbledore that Knockturn Alley would be removed from this world. disappeared.

This truth is very clear, but unfortunately not all pure blood wizards can understand this, or understand that they are not willing to make changes.

Gemma surreptitiously told Lockhart that there had been a recent split within the Pureblood group—her father had allied with Malfoy, Greengrass, Travers, and Slughorn to form a new small group.

Because there are five families in this small group, which is exactly the number of fingers on one hand, so they named their small group "Golden Hand", but they did it with full style.

And their splitting behavior has earned them the "beautiful name" of "traitors" among the Snake Sect wizards.

In this new small group, the Malfoys are the richest, because they not only operate grain futures, but also participate in the oil trading led by Lockhart, and they also have some securities transactions, while the Farley family is not only in oil trading. Shares, there are also many Muggles in their family's fiefdoms, and their interests are aligned with the Malfoys.

Not to mention Slughorn, as a potions expert, he is extraordinary in his own right.

A member of the Apothecary Society, it was also his idea to use the venom of the eight-eyed spider as a "topical swelling potion" to sell to Muggle men. As the Grsengrass family is a traditional herbalist, the increase in potion sales is only good for them, so they also choose to stand with Slughorn.

The Travers family was supposed to be neutral, and his family's stake in the oil transaction was very small, but his family's interests were more closely linked to Lockhart's policies.

"Travers" means "toll collectors": the family's role in the British wizarding world is to collect taxes for the running of the Ministry of Magic. Lockhart's reforms can bring a lot of money to the wizarding world and it will also bring tax revenue soaring, so it is impossible for this family to oppose "entry into the WTO" and "intermediate trade", even if there is one member of his family. The same goes for being in Azkaban for killing the McKinnons.

In other words, these five families are all genuine stakeholders, so they all expressed their stance and firmly supported Lockhart's reform.

The traditional snake pie on the other side is based on the pure blood families of Bock, Flint, Rozier, Avery, Carlo, Nott, Yaxley and Parkinson.

Among them, the one who is most opposed to Lockhart's New Deal is Bogin and Bock, because if the intermediate trade is really implemented, a family like his that runs traditional magic shops will definitely be hit the hardest. And Flint absolutely does not want telephones, telegrams, planes, and postal services to appear in the wizarding world to replace his family's owl business.

As for the other ones, it goes without saying that Yaxley's kind of work is a bit serious, and Avery's family has a bit of land, but Rozier and Carlo are basically broken down. Desperate to the point where only a family heirloom house remains.

The situation of the Parkinson family is not very good. They have been trying to use the happiness of family member Pansy Parkinson to marry the Malfoy family, so as to solve the family's debt-ridden predicament. The Selwyn family has even been reduced to betraying the genealogy - Umri in the original book

Qi is pretending to be a distant relative of the Selwyn family to pretend to be "pure blood", but the Selwyn family who didn't know whether it was receiving money or seeking power acquiesced.

As for Knott's kind of pen... no one cared about him in the first place, as if everyone discussed the plot and never cared what the author himself thought.

In the process of the Serpent's split, Mrs. Longbottom of the Lions, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Tom Abbott of the Leaky Cauldron stood on the sidelines, neither agreeing nor opposing; and the Weasleys even more They are happy to see it happen, watching their jokes with an attitude of watching the fire; Ollivander is aloof, because he thinks that no matter where they are in power in the end, they need the Ollivander family's wand, of course. , He hadn't thought at this time that Voldemort would break the rules so madly.

After knowing this "secret news", Lockhart understood why when he said that he wanted the Owl Post Office to provide delivery services, that Marcus Flint actually ignored the "teacher-student friendship" between him and him, thinking that To show your face.

"Thanks to you, otherwise I really don't know this." He said to Gemma happily.

Gemma Farley looked happy.

"It's good if you know... Actually, you don't have to worry too much about them. Those guys are just irritating and laughing at others. They have neither the courage nor the ability to do bad things. After more than ten years, they will become Nothing."

As she spoke, she motioned for Lockhart to bend her arms so that she could accompany him back to the office in the Shrieking Shack, where they had been in Madame Padrefer for a long time.

Lockhart showed her gentlemanly demeanor as she wished, and at the same time kept all the families she mentioned in a small notebook in her heart.

Sorry, I'm not going to wait ten years for them to slowly disappear, because there is no such time. Lockhart said heartily.

Obviously, these families will be the most loyal to Voldemort after his return.

The subordinates need to find a way to deal with it in advance.